Search spam
Google’s spam policies name tactics such as:
- Scaled content abuse: mass-produced pages with little value, whether written by people or AI
- Scraped, copied or automatically spun content
- Link schemes, including bought links and private blog networks
- Cloaking, sneaky redirects, hidden text and keyword stuffing
- Doorway pages, site reputation abuse and expired domain abuse
- Thin affiliate pages and hacked content
Google fights spam with automated systems such as SpamBrain, regular spam updates and manual actions. Spam can be ignored, demoted or removed from the results entirely.
Email spam
Email spam is bulk email sent without the recipient’s consent. To keep your own emails out of spam folders, only email people who opted in, authenticate your domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, make unsubscribing easy and keep your list clean.
Comment and form spam
Bots post links in blog comments and fill in contact forms. Protect your site with tools such as reCAPTCHA, Cloudflare Turnstile or honeypot fields, and mark links in user comments with rel="ugc" or rel="nofollow".
Spam example
A site publishes 2,000 pages about “best vpn in [city]” for every city, with the same text and only the city name changed, and buys links from a network of blogs. Google’s spam systems detect the scaled, thin pages and the link pattern, and the site loses most of its visibility. A related type of spam, comment spam, fills a blog with links to gambling sites and can be blocked with filters and moderation.
How to protect your site from spam
- Moderate comments and use spam filters. Mark user-generated links with rel=”ugc” or nofollow.
- Keep your CMS, themes and plugins updated and use strong passwords.
- Check Search Console for security issues and manual actions.
- Look at your site with site: searches for pages you did not create.
- Set up alerts for new admin users and file changes.
Spam mistakes
- Leaving old comment sections open with no moderation.
- Ignoring a hacked site, because it looks fine to visitors.
- Using spam tactics yourself, even in small amounts.
Spam FAQs
What are Google’s spam policies?
The rules about what Google treats as spam. See black hat SEO, cloaking and keyword stuffing.
What happens to spammy sites?
They can be demoted or removed. See manual actions and penalties.